Rojgar Job News

The Dialogue – an occasional discussion between myself and a prominent employee-side attorney, Nina Pirrotti returns today after a late summer hiatus. Today’s chat focuses on employee separations and severance agreements.  Share your own tips or observations in the comments below. As always, my thanks to Nina for sharing her insights here. Dan: Hi Nina! How was your summer? Mine was fine except I can’t stop hearing news about President Trump. It seems to drown out everything else going on and I think I have a headache from it all. But let’s give it a try, shall we? I know I’m often confronted with having to fashion separation and settlement agreements for employers.    What do you find are the items in agreements that you think both sides ought to be paying attention to? Nina:  Drowning in Trump-related noise.  The image is horrifying!  My husband and I were chatting the other day about an old Saturday night live weekend updat...

In years past, I’ve looked at my crystal ball, I’ve read the tea leaves and I’ve even examined my Magic 8-Ball sitting in my office.  (You never know when you need one.) I’m out of prediction-making tools. And indeed, since I started doing this, there are now national lawfirms that are offering up their predictions on employment laws. And everyone is pretty much saying the saying thing nationally: More focus on sexual harassment claims; more on pay equity;  big changes at the NLRB; more on LGBT employment law protections and still more wage/hour lawsuits. I’ll make it easy: I agree. But what’s missing is a look at the local perspective for Connecticut employers. So here are some fearless predictions for 2018 applicable to employers in Connecticut. It’s (still) the economy, stupid.  Where’s the recovery? As it turns out, Connecticut’s economy and budget are both in a bit of a mess. Unemployment has crept back up of late...

Earlier this week, it seemed that a bill requiring employers to conduct additional training on sexual harassment matters was a no-brainer to pass the General Assembly. After all, Senate Bill 132 passed 31-5 in the state Senate and in this #metoo environment (not to mention local elections in the fall), the House looked to be a near certainty. But a lot can happen in a few days, and some of the bill’s more controversial provisions were simply too much for the bill to overcome. Thus, employers do not yet have to worry about the new training requirements and changes to the state’s anti-discrimination laws. That said, employers still need to follow existing state law regarding training of supervisors (if applicable) and should still exercise caution in dealing with cases of harassment. One bill that did receive passage late last night was Senate Bill 175, which I haven’t talked much about. That bill makes a number of changes to  government and quasi-public agencies. ...

Without any fanfare, the Connecticut Department of Labor has recently updated their separation packets, that include the so-called “Pink Slips”. Employers must start using this packet immediately on a going-forward basis. Previously, there was a category of “layoff” but the new form has eliminated that checkbox, and replaced it with “leave of absence”.  This is a welcome change because the “layoff” and “lack of work” always seemed a bit duplicative. There are also still categories for “lack of work” “voluntarily leaving” and “discharge/separation”, along with the catch-all “other” but the “leave of absence” stands out in this pandemic. Employers that are using furloughs should check off the “leave of absence” box. A furlough is, after all, basically a forced unpaid leave of absence by the employer. The employee is eligible for unemployment benefits and...